


Past the Disappearance

by StevetheIcecube



Series: Path of Radiance + Radiant Dawn Modern AU [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-17 15:02:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16976820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StevetheIcecube/pseuds/StevetheIcecube
Summary: Ike was woken up at four in the morning on a school night by Soren shaking him awake and then they watched his dad drive away into the night. The problem came in working out what happened next.





	1. Vanished

And just like that, he was gone. And Ike really just...didn’t get it. He’d gone to bed that evening after saying goodnight to his dad. His dad had ruffled his hair and informed him that, at half seven the next morning, he’d get him up to get ready for school. His dad told him to sleep well.

And at four in the morning, Ike woke up to Soren shaking him. Because the front door had just slammed closed. And, as if still dreaming (at the time, Ike had sort of been convinced he still was), he had watched his dad drive the car out of the driveway. And then he was gone. At four in the morning. Without telling any of them.

He hadn’t believed it at first. Maybe he just wanted to go out for a nighttime drive. Maybe he’d be back in the morning, or even within an hour. Maybe it wasn’t a big deal at all. Because why would it be a big deal? It wasn’t like his dad would just leave or anything like that. His dad wasn’t like that.

He’d stayed up for half an hour trying to convince Soren that he’d be coming back. Eventually, Soren had given up arguing with him in hushed tones and had gone back to sleep. Ike hadn’t been able to, for a bit, but eventually tiredness caught up to him.

His dad had told him he’d get him up. So when the emergency ‘dad didn’t wake you up’ alarm went off at eight, he panicked a bit. Soren was trying not to look smug because it was a really bad thing to be right about. Ike had just tried to keep it together. If it was a problem, he could deal with it later.

He set Soren to making lunches, happy to return to the usual jab of ‘oh, sending me to the kitchen because I look like a girl?’ while he went to go and get Mist. He told her that they had to be very quiet because dad had been up late working last night and he’d overslept. She frowned deeply at his probably overly patronising tone, but he was stressed and didn’t know how to gauge stuff to her when it felt like she got three years older every other day.

They weren’t even late to school, because this had sort of happened before. Dad had business trips sometimes and that was fine. This was different, but they’d dealt with a similar kind of outcome to the problem before.

Ike tried to focus through that day. Tried to focus on his lessons. Tried to sit through every plodding second worrying about Soren, struggling away on his own in a different classroom. Worrying about how to tell Mist what had really happened when they got home. Should he tell a teacher? Call the police?

The school knew that something was wrong, because Soren was kind of adopted and kind of not (okay, the word was fostered, but they weren’t exactly sending him back any time soon. He was basically their family but also not Ike’s brother because that would be really weird) and their mum was gone. They knew that something was wrong generally, but just...not specifically. Not right now.

‘Hey Dad,’ he wrote the text message during his first break time, because maybe just maybe he’d reply. ‘I know you left this morning. When are you coming home? We won’t burn the house down without you :)’

The message sent, and Ike put his phone away, hoping that maybe this would make a difference and put his mind at ease by the time the end of the school day came. But then at lunch, he checked his phone again. The message from his dad read ‘I’m sorry’. Nothing else.

‘Dad, what do you mean?’  
‘You can’t just say that with no clarification’  
‘When are you coming back?’  
‘Mist is worried about you’  
‘Please Dad’

But none of the messages sent. They all produced the same error; they could not be received. Because the source number couldn’t be accessed. Which meant that his dad had purposefully cut them off from contacting him further.

Ike struggled through his last lesson while texting Soren through the whole thing. Soren was always loathe to do something that could get either of them in a teacher’s bad books, but of course he understood the urgency. Because this was urgent. Really urgent.

‘What do we do when the lesson is over?’ He just didn’t know what to do. Why was this happening? ‘We can’t just go home. I don’t think I want to go home.’

‘We could call the police and say he’s missing,’ Soren suggested. ‘Or we could tell a teacher. They’d do the same thing. May as well skip the intermediary.’

‘Maybe he just needs to blow off some steam,’ Ike suggested. ‘I don’t want him to think I wa super worried or angry or anything if he just needed some space from this right now.’

‘He drove off in the middle of the night with two packed suitcases,’ Soren replied. ‘I checked while you were waking Mist up. I don’t think he’s coming back any time soon.’

‘So it’s planned, he’s not missing.’ Ike just didn’t want to...his mum had been recorded missing. Because she’d just vanished into thin air one day and that had just been- the suspicion around all of it was unbearable. And now the big scary man in the family that they’d start pinning the blame on immediately was him.

‘What about Titania?’ Soren asked. Ike felt like smacking himself. It was so obvious. Of course they could go to her. Because they always could, when they needed something. She was always there for them. Except...he’d have to call her after school. And he couldn’t explain what was going on for Mist to learn it all second hand while they were in school.

‘Yes, Soren, you’re a genius :D we’ll figure the rest out later. Should prob go now.’ The rest of the lesson was excruciating but at least he had a next step. He could make it through this. For now, anyway.

-

“Hi Titania,” Ike said the moment he heard her pick up the phone. He almost sighed with relief. Sometimes she was working on stuff, or in meetings, so he was lucky that she was available right now. “Uhh, Dad’s on a business trip right now and he just texted to say that he’d asked if we could stay at yours?”

“He didn’t,” Titania said, but her tone wasn’t unkind. Good start. Ike didn’t know why he was so nervous.

“No, he didn’t,” he said. He glanced at Soren, who returned the glance with a small, encouraging smile.

“Is something going on?” She asked. “You’re in school, so you can’t say, is that right?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m coming to get you. All three of you are there?”

“Yep,” he said. “Thanks, Titania. You’re great.” He didn’t know why he was quite so shaky. She was always great, and calling her to ask for a lift was always important and there was always the chance that his dad would have forgotten to say and they’d be stranded. But this felt more important than those times.

“It’s no problem, Ike,” she said. “See you in half an hour or so.” With that, she hung up, and Ike let out a shaky breath.

“She said he forgot to tell her,” he said with a shaky laugh. Something was definitely going on. “But it’s okay, she’s coming to get us now and we can stay at hers until Dad gets back.”

Mist smiled, but the look on her face told Ike that she knew something was up. He was going to have to explain this soon. And he didn’t mind, because he’d always known that he was going to have to, but...it was still worrying. And he didn’t really want to explain it because that would mean accepting it and it was upsetting. He didn’t want Mist to feel like this too.

Ike couldn’t help but feel like he’d said the wrong thing to his dad, and that was the reason he’d turned his phone off and decided not to come back. Or he’d done something wrong in the last week and his dad had just decided he’d had enough of the three of them, or...something. He didn’t know. But whatever it was, he didn’t like it, and he felt like he was to blame somehow.

-

Titania pulled up just under half an hour later, just like she’d said she would. She looked worried, and Ike really wished she just...wouldn’t. He was worried enough on his own, but now the certified responsible adult in his life was worried too and he really wasn’t ready for something like this, honestly. He didn’t know if he’d ever be ready. He shouldn’t even have to be.

“Come on, kids,” she said, offering up a smile. Ike tried to return it, but he knew it wasn’t convincing at all. “Who wants to go in the front?”

“Me!” Mist said immediately, practically racing forwards. Ike was too worried about everything else to challenge her for his right, as the oldest, to the front seat. He just got in the back with Soren and tried to think of a way to phrase what was going on.

“Okay, Ike,” Titania said as soon as the doors were closed and she moved to pull out of the school car park. “Tell me what’s really going on. You can take your time, don’t worry.”

“Dad left with a suitcase at four in the morning,” he said. “He just got in his car and drove away. And when I- when I texted him-”

“Greil replied that he was sorry and then presumably turned his phone off,” Soren said, taking over. Ike wanted to protest that he could speak for himself, but he knew that Soren was just throwing him a line and it was fine. There wasn’t anything wrong with it being hard to say. “Ike’s later texts didn’t get through to him.”

“Ah,” Titania said, and Ike couldn’t see her face, but he knew exactly the expression she was making. Thoughtful, concerned. He felt the same way, along with a whole jumble of emotions he couldn’t understand. Couldn’t put into words. “Should we head back to your house and grab you all some overnight stuff?”

“And stuff for school tomorrow?” Mist asked. Her voice was small and scared and in that moment Ike was pretty sure he was angry at his father. Mist didn’t deserve this kind of shit from him.

“Do you want to go into school tomorrow?” Titania asked. “If none of us have heard from your dad by tomorrow afternoon I’m going to call the police. I wouldn’t want it to disturb your day.”

“Do you have to?” Ike asked. “The police will…”

“They’ll ask questions,” she said, “and that’s important. Because your dad is missing. We don’t know where he is, or where he’s planning to go, or why. I will be contacting the police once no one has heard from him for twenty four hours.”

“I think we should go to school,” Mist said. “I don’t wanna- we might miss stuff because of this. Like with Mum. And I don’t want to miss too much…”

“There are things far more important than missing school,” Soren said. “I personally would go. But this isn’t an easy issue. Taking time off may be better to get things in order.”

“There’s nothing to really get in order until we work out what’s going on,” Ike said. “May as well go in and go from there.”

Titania nodded. “You can make the decision tomorrow,” she said. “Don’t let anything pressure you into going or staying, though. Make your own decision, but make it as a group if you can.”

Ike just nodded. “We’ll figure something out,” he said. “May as well pack a bag of stuff each regardless.” He hated having to think about all the practicalities. If he was going to go to school tomorrow, how long he might be staying with Titania, what the police and the social workers would say when they knew what was going on. He didn’t want to think about it all logically.

But at the same time, he knew doing stuff and working through stuff was probably what was holding him together right now. He wasn’t much of a crier, but he knew that he’d cry about this when he didn’t have to hold himself together in front of Mist. This was upsetting and scary and maybe...this could have been exactly what happened to Mum but no one knew and now it had happened to his dad too.

He threw a bunch of things together as quickly as he could when he got into his house. He didn’t want to think about how, twenty four hours ago, his dad might have been doing the same thing, preparing to leave them behind forever. He didn’t want to stay any longer than necessary. He just wanted to get away.

“Ike,” Soren said, catching onto his arm as they crossed over when grabbing stuff from the bathroom. “Are you doing okay?”

Ike sighed and shook his head, but didn’t say anything. He was worried about if he’d start crying if he did open his mouth. Soren looked him in the eyes and nodded. “We’ll talk later, okay?” Ike nodded.

He hated this. He hated being so...emotional. He knew there was nothing wrong with being upset about things, especially when it was important like this. But he still felt like a huge baby and this was just so wrong. He was only fifteen. He shouldn’t have to be organising where he’s going to live for himself, let alone for his little sister.

When (if, his brain told him, and he tried to dismiss it but the thought wouldn’t go away) his dad came back...Ike was going to punch him for this. And then he’d cry and hug him and they’d make a meal together and it would be fine, but right now it was absolutely not fine.


	2. Questioning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People try to work out what happened to Greil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've ended up writing another couple of things in this universe which I think I'll put in a oneshot collection. Thanks for your support after the first chapter :)

Titania had two spare bedrooms, and after a bit of teasing, she let Ike and Soren share a room, with Mist having the smaller room to herself. That was how it always went when they stayed at Titania’s, which had been happening less frequently lately but now it was happening again. And it felt like everything should be the same as always.

Except, at the same time, it was so different. Because this was...Ike just had a really bad feeling that this time wasn’t going to be as temporary as the times that came before. The only time he’d really worried about something like that was when his mum had first disappeared, and his dad had asked Titania to take them so he could ‘sort stuff out’, and then he didn’t come back for two weeks.

But even back then, it didn’t feel permanent. Ike’s world had been falling apart, but he’d sort of still believed at that time that his dad was out looking for his mum and then they’d both come back. That hadn’t happened.

He wasn’t really expecting his dad to come back this time. He was expecting a text or a call, maybe. Or maybe his dad had just gone off the deep end and he’d be back once he calmed down, but...Ike didn’t know what told him that wasn’t the case. He didn’t know and that scared him.

When they were finally alone, and the door was closed, and the bags were on the floor, Soren sat down on the bed he always slept on and patted the space next to him. Feeling drained, Ike came to sat next to him and just buried his face in Soren’s jumper sleeve and...he didn't cry, exactly. He didn't feel like crying, but...this had him so on edge, so upset, and it wasn’t fair. It was like he was grieving for his dad, but he wasn’t, because his dad was alive and he was angry at him so it wasn’t even like that, but gods. He was angry. And this had been way, way too stressful. He shouldn’t have to deal with this. But his dad had forced him to.

“It’ll be okay, Ike,” Soren said, shifting his arm so it was draped loosely over Ike’s shoulders instead (well, one of them, because Soren was weedy and Ike was not). “I know it’s awful and I’m...I’m upset too. But it’ll be okay.”

Ike almost snapped that it was easy for Soren to say that, because it wasn’t his dad who’d just left in the middle of the night. But that wasn’t the right thing to say, and he shouldn't lose his temper. Soren just dealt with things differently. Quietly, and over time. He was probably stewing over this right now, about how the only remaining person who’d been willing to be his guardian was gone, and-

Dad was gone. And Dad was the one that Soren was with, but him and Mist weren’t family members of Soren in the same way, legally. And if their dad was gone...what was going to happen to the three of them? Would they be allowed to stay with Titania? Would they take his dad’s will into consideration? Did Dad even have a will? Surely he did, after his mum disappeared, but…

Titania was Mist’s godmother. That was probably enough to keep her with Titania, after a bit of wrangling with social workers. And the virtue of keeping families together would keep Ike with Mist and Titania, as long as she wanted him there.

But Soren...Soren was sort of on his own without Ike’s family. Well, he did have a family, but gods knew whether they were allowed to take care of Soren. Either way, Ike didn’t want Soren to go away. He was...honestly, he was everything to Ike. And maybe that was silly, but Ike valued his bond with Soren.

“What if they make you leave?” he asked, his words mumbled into Soren’s side. Soren shook his head.

“They won’t,” he said firmly. “If they try, I’ll refuse to leave. The closest place I'd go is miles and miles away, completely out of catchment for the school, and this year is too important in education for them to uproot me from here. They’re pretty heartless, but they do care about me.”

Ike thought back to the Soren he’d first met, a far cry from the Soren who was willingly offering physical affection to him. He was nothing like the eight year old who barely opened his mouth more than three times a day. Any social worker in their right mind would see that this was the right place for him, but...he couldn’t help but be worried.

“Still worried,” he said, and Soren nodded.

“I know,” he said. “Me too. But we have to keep going."

Ike nodded, feeling the tiniest bit better. His worries weren’t gone, not by a long shot, but he felt better after getting his emotions out a bit. He didn’t say anything else for a while, just waited. Enjoyed the quiet with Soren.

-

Soren and Ike were in the same lesson when they were called to reception at one that afternoon. Ike had plenty of friends, and people who thought he was great, so maybe it was the presence of Soren, but there were lots of laughs going round the class as they left the room. They wouldn’t do that if they knew what was going on.

“I trust you know what this is about?” Their head of year asked as she walked them through the building and out onto the grounds. Ike nodded. “The police are here to talk to you two and your sister. You’ll go back to your lessons when that’s done.”

So, it wasn’t that serious yet. That was good, at least. As the days dragged on, Ike knew that things would get more serious and there’d be proper time out of school, but he was happy to maintain a semblance of normalcy for now.

The police were exactly the same as they tended to be in situations like this. Missing adult who hadn’t been missing for long, and they were dealing with kids, so they were being friendly. That, too, would decrease as things got more serious.

They asked the same questions Titania had, and Ike managed to get all the way through the tale this time. Once that was done, they asked to see his phone to get a record of the texts. “We’ll have to take it at some point for the official data,” they said. “Ideally as soon as possible.”

“You can take it now,” Ike said with a shrug. They liked talking about evidence and it being compromised and tampered with, which held up any case or leads they might have. That’s what had always come up on the case with his mum; Ike wouldn’t let them blame the disappearance on lack of reliable evidence again.

“Thank you,” the policewoman said, taking the phone and putting it in a sealed plastic bag. Ike took a moment to mourn his separation from his tower defence game, but it was fine. This was more important. “We’ll get it back to you once we’ve extracted the text data between the two of you.”

“Did he text either of you?” the policeman asked Mist and Soren. They both shook their heads.

“We only text if there’s something to arrange,” Mist said. “He hasn’t texted me in weeks.”

“Likewise,” Soren said. “If he contacts anyone, it’s usually Ike.”

“And did any of you have any indication of your father acting in any way out of the ordinary?” the policewoman asked.

Ike thought for a moment. He knew that he was going to be asked this question, and he’d been thinking about what he could possibly say as an answer and he just...came up with nothing, mostly. His dad always acted weird. If anything, he’d been more like his old self recently. Ike had felt cheered up by it.

“No,” he said. “He normally...has quite a short temper with us, and sometimes when he loses it he’ll go off for a drive. But whenever he’s going to be out overnight, he always tells us and asks Titania to look after us. He hasn’t just left for a break from us in months.”

“I see,” she said. “So he didn’t seem annoyed at you, and he’s never done something like this before?”

“He sort of disappeared after Mum did, for a bit,” he said. “But that was with warning. And we knew he’d come back. This time he just vanished with no warning, in the middle of the night. He told me as I was going to bed that he’d get me up in the morning.”

“And does he say that every night?”

“Yeah,” he said. “He always says it. ‘Cause Mum used to say it, back when she was still around. So now he does.”

“Okay,” the policeman said. He’d been writing everything down as they spoke. “Is there anything else? You said there was no reason for this to happen, but is there any particular reason this surprised you?”

No, Ike wanted to say. It didn’t surprise him, because even though he loved his dad, his dad was also really bad at being a parent and had been for a long time. He was bad at communicating, and that’s just how it was. Honestly, maybe Dad was just feeling a bit low and needed to get away and when Ike had texted him he just wasn’t feeling better yet. But he didn’t say any of that, because that would just raise more questions about what should happen when Dad returned.

“He’s been better lately,” Mist said. “He used to get frustrated a lot. Or say weird things. But he hadn’t been doing that for a few weeks. I thought he was getting better but maybe-”

Mist was too old for her actual age. Ike knew this. All the words that were thrown around when they thought she was too young to understand had gone to heart. She was eleven years old, she’d been eight when Mum had disappeared. But she knew all about what people had been saying might had happened.

“Thanks, sweetie,” the policewoman said. She smiled at all three of them. It was the fake smile which was covering up that she thought what Mist had just said was very bad news. Ike was inclined to agree. “We’ll get your dad back as soon as we can. Just one more thing before you can go back to school stuff, do you know your dad’s car number plate?”

Ike nodded, and relayed the identification to them. They clearly thought it was urgent enough to conduct a search. Maybe they were going to be looking for a scrapped car. “We’re allowed to stay with Titania, right?” He asked.

“There’ll be someone coming along to discuss that with you soon,” the policeman said. “Don’t worry about it. I know all of this isn’t the best of situations for you kids, but something will get worked out and it’ll be what you want, seeing as-”

Seeing as there are currently no parents trying to fight over them or get custody, was what the policeman was going to say. Ike knew how it worked. He’d seen the strongly worded letters about Soren that had come through their letterbox, even when his parents had tried to hide them from him and Soren. He didn’t know if the policeman thought he couldn’t guess what was being said or not, but either way, he didn’t like the implications.

Ike just nodded, and shot an encouraging smile towards Mist, who smiled shakily back. This process couldn’t be a nice thing for her to relive; it had been bad enough for Ike. “Thanks for your time, all of you,” the woman said. “You can go along and head back to your lessons. Have a good day.”

Ike tried. He tried to have a good day, tried to keep his chin up and think about the next day, think about doing homework, working towards his exams. He tried to think about cooking dinner with Mist, and spending the evening with Soren.

All he could think about was when the police came to their house two years ago to tell them they’d been forced to close the case on Mum because there were no more leads. And they’d recommended presuming she was dead. He couldn’t let this happen again. Not to Mist, not to Soren, not to himself. He wanted better than this.


	3. Challenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The remaining parts of Ike's family are nearly torn apart.

“What do you mean, you don’t think he should stay?” Titania asked, fury evident in her voice. Ike felt the same way, but he didn’t want to say anything. His voice might crack and he’d make a fool of himself in front of these people. Instead, he just held Soren’s hand under the table. It would be okay. Titania wouldn’t let this happen.

“It’s a troubling time for Ike and Mist,” the social worker explained, his voice very even and calm. “Greil acted as a kind of provisional guardian for Soren, he’s not part of the family unit so to speak. He comes with his own struggles as a child and we wouldn’t want that offloaded onto Ike and Mist, or to see them lose out on vital support.”

“Not part of the family my arse,” Titania said. “How can you say this in front of them all? Soren has been part of their family for longer than their mother has been gone. They support each other, it’s not some kind of competition.”

“You’re right,” the social worker said. “Perhaps this conversation should be had separate to the three of you being here.” He turned his carefully neutral face towards the three of them, sitting to Titania’s left. Ike scowled at him.

“We’re not being cut out of this conversation,” Ike said. “If you have something to say about Soren, you can say it in front of him, not behind him. You can say it in front of me, too.” He made sure that his voice contained enough of a threat that the social worker got the message.

The man sighed. “Soren has his own difficulties inside and outside of school. It would be unfair to put the responsibility of looking after him onto you when you’re under your own set of stresses.”

“You think it would have been any different when Dad was still around?” Ike asked. “He wasn’t home much. If Soren is meant to be a ‘problem to look after’ now, what about back then? Or did you just not care because there was an adult in the house? Because guess what, Soren doesn’t need ‘looking after’, he’s not a responsibility or a burden. He’s my-”

“We’re best friends,” Soren cut in quickly. Okay, Soren was getting homophobe vibes. That was fair enough, considering the inconsiderate way the man had been talking so far. “Is it really in my best interests to remove me from an environment where people care about me?”

“People care about you everywhere,” he said firmly. “It’s whether it’s fair to ask these people to care for you in a situation where they need to look after themselves, too.”

“Don’t try and pin this on me,” Soren said. “Acting like it’s my responsibility to make some kind of ‘better choice’ for others and sacrifice myself. There’s no sacrifice to make if I just stay. How long has it been since anyone did an assessment of how I was getting on in Greil’s family? You have no idea what’s best here.”

“Think of Titania too,” the social worker reminded him. Ike was very, very ready to punch this man. Sure, he was trying to do his job, but Soren was right. His information about the level of ‘care’ a fifteen year old needed was completely out of date. He had no idea what was going on and was trying to make decisions based on falsehoods. “The money and time needed to look after three children-”

“Should be no more than two if I am the one providing a foster home for Soren,” Titania said. “I think continuity is more important than any proclaimed ideas of ‘saving effort’. Kids aren’t just values of worth raising and not worth raising, Mr Daer. I understand that you have concerns, but they are unfounded. Could we get on to working out something worthwhile, please?”

The social worker sighed, looked over at the three of them, and then nodded. “We can talk about options more another time,” he said. “For now, we should work on working out the legal and financial issues of temporary guardianship.”

“Thank you,” Titania said, “for seeing a little reason.”

Ike loved Titania. She was basically just really, really cool.

-

“You don’t mind that Soren’s staying, right?” Ike asked later that evening. It was him doing the dishes with Titania; he could hear Soren helping Mist with her maths homework at the table but he knew Soren wouldn’t mind the questions being asked.

“Of course not,” Titania said firmly. “I have no more problem with Soren than I have with you and Mist. I know you and him come as a pair, Ike, don’t worry about it at all.”

Ike nodded, but he still couldn’t shake the words the social worker had said that had just made him so angry. “And we’re not too much of a burden for you?”

“Ike, I live alone and work a full time job with a salary that could be used for a family of four. I could take all three of you without a worry in the world. Sure, it’s different to just you three staying over occasionally and going back at the end of the week, but I don’t mind.”

He nodded again. “And we’re not too…” He didn’t know how to phrase it without sounding like that man. Too fragile, too burdened by everything going on, too stressed by their father seemingly abandoning them.

“Not in any way at all,” Titania said. “It’s not going to be the easiest time for you all, and consequently it won’t be the easiest time for me. I was friends with your father too, for a long time. Seeing him disappear, abandoning his children as a consequence, is quite a thing to come to terms with. But that doesn’t mean I just want to leave you to the mercy of the world. That would be worse.”

At this point, Ike just felt like one of those dolls that nodded over and over. He’d just...he’d wanted to know what Titania thought. And he wasn’t really surprised by her answers, because he knew she’d answer in pretty much just that way. But it was still good to hear it.

And hearing it...Ike knew that things were going to be okay. They’d be tough, like they’d been tough in the wake of losing his mum. But things couldn’t always been easy. They’d been hard ever since he could remember, honestly. The world was cruel and it had been especially cruel to the people in his family.

Ike looked up, looked over to Soren, who was sitting next to Mist. Both of them had their backs to him. Ike smiled. Yeah, that social worker didn’t know shit about his family. Because the family that really mattered were right here and he would fight for them forever if he had to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it, folks! :) thank you so much for reading! I'll be posting a oneshot collection for this au at some point soon, I have two things written for it already.

**Author's Note:**

> A comment would be very much appreciated! :) I haven't written for PoR/RD before and it probably showed, but it was fun to write anyway! I've now posted a second fic in this series, a collection of oneshots in the universe, and I'll probably add to it in time.


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